Carcinoma of the endometrium: Mayo clinic experience

Five hundred and twenty-three patients with endometrial carcinoma treated at the Mayo Clinic from 1952 through 1962 have been followed up for a minimum of 10 years. These patients have been assigned International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics classifications retrospectively; 324 were stage IA and 85 were stage IB. Only 24 patients were stage II and 90 were stages III and IV, combined. Most patients were symptomatic, and a significantly greater number of stage IV patients had symptoms for a longer duration. The average age was 59 years; most patients were postmenopausal and there was a high degree of nulliparity. Seventeen and one-half percent of all patients in this series had a second carcinoma at some time, with breast and colon being the most common second primaries. Treatment was basically total hysterectomy and bilateral salpingooophorectomy with postoperative radiation added on an individualized basis. Seventy-four percent of the 523 patients survived 5 years and 64% survived 10 years. This varied from a 90% 5-year survival in 249 patients with stage IA or IB, G1, to a 13% 5-year survival in 46 patients with stage IV lesions.